


Not Just Needed, But Wanted

by lotorslance



Category: Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, College AU, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Strong Language, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, Tree Bros, lots of swearing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-26
Updated: 2017-08-25
Packaged: 2018-12-19 23:33:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11908524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lotorslance/pseuds/lotorslance
Summary: Connor meets Evan over the summer before their senior year of high school and it changes everything. They've been dating for a year and are getting ready to go off to college together, but before they can face their future, they need to confront their dark pasts.





	Not Just Needed, But Wanted

“Shit, shit, shit…,” Connor fumbled around Evan’s bedside table, trying to find the tissues so he could sop up his tears before the other woke up.  
  
Luck was not on his side, as Evan was a light sleeper, being easily woken up by the jostling of the tiny mattress they were squished together on. It took him a minute to understand what was going on: Connor was throwing his stuff from his nightstand on the floor and opening up the drawer, going through all his meds, college essays that never got sent out, old assignments, letters to himself, and an old sock or two. But as his senses woke up one at a time, his hearing coming in after his sight, he heard…sniffling?  
  
He reached over with a soft whine, tugging on the back of his hoodie so the other wouldn’t be too startled.  
  
Connor jerked around, clearly on edge—but along with his usual angry scowl, there were tears rolling down his cheeks.  
  
“Sorry! Wha…what are you doing? Are you…areyouokay?"  
  
If he wasn’t awake before, he certainly was now as he pushed himself to sit upright, scooting back to sit against his pillows, his brow furrowed. Anxiety washed over him, his stomach twisting and turning, threatening to unleash last night’s pizza all over his boyfriend’s lap. “What’s wrong? Connor?”  
  
He turned away, hiding behind his hair and snuffing, putting down Evan’s pill bottle. The owner’s eyes followed the bottle and suddenly went wide, but before he could start begging for answers, Connor stopped him with the truth.  
  
“I wasn’t…gonna do anything.”  
  
Evan breathed a sigh of relief, fiddling with the edge of the bedsheets.  
  
“I was just checking…y’know, if they were still there.” He sniffed.  
  
“Tell me. Tell me. You’ll feel better if you talk about it!” He was feeling a little desperate; this wasn’t the first time Connor had woken up crying from a nightmare, and it wasn’t the first time Evan had pleaded with him to talk about it. How could he help him if he kept it all inside?  
  
But Connor had always been better with typing out his feelings than speaking them, especially face-to-face. Evan knew that. Still, he asked.  
  
Every time.  
  
“Shit, Evan…” Connor rubbed his face with his hands, wanting to tell him and wanting to be there for him and calm him down and do all of the things a boyfriend should be able to do, but he couldn't. He got up and stormed out of the room, more angry at himself than anyone else. Evan heard the bathroom door slam so hard the lamp on his nightstand shook, and he shuddered, before groaning and falling back down on the pillows.  
  
It had been one of the same dreams Connor always had: a dream where he had to watch himself die at the end, right before he woke up. But that wasn’t even the worst part of the dream: the worst part was watching Evan die and not being able to do a damn thing about it.  
  
He’d told Zoe to _‘fuck off, go to Hell’_ for the thousandth time that summer, and his mother’d had enough. She’d bugged the crap out of him to apologize, so much so that he couldn’t stand it anymore and he took off.  
  
A lot of things had been on his mind that day. He had his backpack ready to go, crammed with all ‘essentials’ as he made his way to Ellison State Park, which had some nice, forest-y areas that were pretty secluded. If he couldn’t go through with it today, at least he’d have some space to think and a tree to punch.  
  
And that’s exactly what he did. He punched a random ass tree in the middle of a fucking state park, and the love of his life came tumbling out of it and the rest was history.  
  
But that’s where the dream always diverged from reality.  
  
_‘This is just the story of how I met my perfectly amazing, flawless, absolutely gorgeous boyfriend,’_ he’d start out the dream thinking. And it was a good story. A really, really great memory of a special moment that’d sealed the both of their fates for the better and made Connor’s heart swell and his mind buzz with happiness.  
  
Neither of them was meant to die that day, and they were put into each other’s lives to tell one another that.  
  
The dream—at this point, it was more like a nightmare—would then force Connor to watch helplessly as Evan took his own life from the top of that tree. It never made sense; he didn’t even really know Evan at that point, he shouldn’t feel so sick the way he did but the thing is, Connor never experienced the dream through the eyes of the Connor who stood there dumbstruck and unable to act, but watched from above. And as he watched from above, he knew that was his boyfriend, dying the worst way possible before they even had a chance to cross paths.  
  
The strong sense of loss, the guilt, the heartbreak all added up and felt too real every time, driving him to reach for that bottle stowed away in his backpack, and then he’d wake up from it all feeling like absolute shit.  
  
He had a bunch of nightmares like that and they all ended with him dying, or they'd start with him already dead. He’d had the thoughts running through his head for so many years they’d felt almost normal by the time he reached his Junior year of high school, but after meeting Evan he wanted nothing more than to wash them all away and forget them all.  
  
But apparently they never go away. Love doesn’t make them go away. Happiness doesn’t make them go away: it’s always there, in the back of your head, and if you’re not feeling guilty for existing, you’re feeling guilty for at one point thinking about not existing.  
  
Connor collected himself, taking deep breaths and washing his face off, then quickly combing through his hair with his fingers staring at his reflection in the mirror. It was like, 7 in the morning, but he wanted to look at least a little presentable for Evan when he returned, especially after worrying him so much.  
  
He didn’t have to go very far, as the blonde was standing right outside the bathroom, alternating between picking at his nails and fiddling with the edge of his sleeping t-shirt.  
  
Making Evan a nervous mess was not on the top of his priority list. It actually made him feel even worse, but he couldn’t let the other see that; this was not his fault, not at all, so he pulled him into a hug. “I’m fine,” he reassured him.  
  
He actually smiled when he felt how much Evan relaxed, and hugged back, clinging to his hoodie and rolling a pinch of fabric between his fingers.  
  
“Are you sure?”  
  
“Yeah. Sorry for scaring you.”  
  
Evan tightened his grip, pushing his face into Connor’s shoulder, and the other held him even tighter, even closer.  
  
God, he was fucking lucky to have this gift of a man.

* * *

“Stop,” he hit Evan’s hand away from his mouth, _“Stop.”_  
  
Evan was looking up at him like the most innocent little thing, as he continued to bring his hand back up to his mouth each time Connor pushed it away.  
  
“Not when you’re doing breakfast.”  
  
Evan knew he was right; it was unsanitary, and the only thing that really stopped him from doing it was the idea that he could get Connor sick somehow. Knowing he didn’t deserve that, so he went to the sink like a puppy being punished and washed off his hands before returning to the toaster and popping up the waffles.  
  
“Fuck…that looks so bad, it’s good.” Connor peeked over his shoulder as Evan prepared the Eggos for the both of them.  
  
“That’s exactly it!” he smiled, pouring maple syrup over the soggy waffles. “Oh, I forgot the butter.”  
  
Connor strut to the fridge, grabbed a stack and plopped it on the cupboard. Evan took it, grabbing a plastic knife in one hand and unwrapping the butter stick carefully, slicing two pats.  
  
“A _plastic_ knife, Evan?”  
  
“I don’t wanna cut myself! On accident?”  
  
“Right…”  
  
He dropped each pat of butter on the waffles then spread it around with the maple syrup, and placed the plate on the other cupboard.  
  
As he pulled a stool up to the cupboard and began to nibble on a waffle, Connor joined him, sitting on the edge of his chair and pulling a knee up to his chest. “I always wanted to eat these.”  
  
“You never had waffles?”  
  
“We did, but y’know, it was always some kinda weird, fancy Vegan mix and it never really tasted that good so I usually just threw it away.” He picked up his plastic fork, and was about to dig in when—  
  
“My hand…hurts. It hurts,” The fork tumbled from Evan’s hand, clattering to the plate as he held it up to his face for inspection. He winced, seeing some blood pop up at the base of a stray hangnail of his middle finger.  
  
“That’s why you can’t be biting your nails all the time,” Connor chided, rolling his eyes. Regardless of the big scene he made of putting down his fork, shoving his chair, getting up and sighing loudly, he went to the bathroom to get the box of bandaids Evan’s mother kept in the cabinet. When he came back, he was a lot more calm and had a little smile on his lips, waving around the bandaid as he peeled off the wrapper.  
  
“Look, it’s Hello Kit—“  
  
“Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, it’s bleeding. It’s _bleeding,_ Connor!” Evan hopped up from the chair and raced over to him, shoving his bloody middle finger in his boyfriend’s face.  
  
“Stop picking at it!”  
  
“I wasn’t! I wasn’t picking at it!”  
  
“You were, or it wouldn’t be _fuckin’ bleeding,”_ he huffed, taking hold of his hand with a lot more care than he put into his words.  
  
“Maybe I…picked at it a little. I was trying to get it off!”  
  
“Once the blood dries, you clip it off. You don’t pick it off, Evan. There’s a reason nail clippers exist.”  
  
“R-Right…right. Sorry,” his eyes widened as he watched him wrap a pink Hello Kitty bandaid with bows and polka dots around his fingernail. “Oh. It stopped hurting…”  
  
Even if Evan’s nervous habits sometimes pushed Connor to the edge and he needed to step away before he exploded at his boyfriend, they also helped him begin controlling himself, a little bit at a time. It felt good to be able to care for him, to be the one who was looked up to, and to be not just needed, but wanted.  
  
Those thoughts returned the gentle smile to Connor’s lips as he pulled the bandaid taut, and stuck one end to the other. “There.”  
  
While he was at it, he examined Evan’s other fingernails, which were all in a pretty dire state. “After breakfast, we’re doing your nails.”  
  
“What? Why? What’s wrong with them?” Even as he asked it, one glance at them was enough to understand.  
  
“There’s nothing wrong with them, they could just…uh. Y’know…it’s like taking a shower but for your nails.”  
  
“Or like brushing your teeth?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
While the similes were strange, they made sense, Evan thought, as the two returned to the breakfast bar in the kitchen.  
  
Connor propped his head up with his fist as he turned his fork on its side, cutting a piece of the Eggo off and bringing it to his mouth, sticking it in before he gave its ingredients too much thought.  
  
When he swallowed it down and he reached for his cup of milk, he saw Evan was staring at him with wide, hopeful eyes.  
  
“S-so? How is it? Do you like it?”  
  
Connor looked away, knowing he’d get lost gushing over how adorable his boyfriend was if he gazed at him for too long, and took a long swig of milk before pulling away with a sigh.  
  
“Y’know? It’s as shitty as I thought it’d be. In a good way, though.”  
  
“Oh my god,” Evan chuckled, pleased with his reaction. He wasn’t spitting them out!  
  
“You did good, Babe.” He leaned over, pecking Evan’s lips before continuing to work at his waffles, cutting them up with the side of his fork in randomly sized chunks while Evan used the plastic knife to neatly slice his own along all the lines.  
  
He was really downplaying it. He _loved_ the crappy frozen waffles Evan made for him. He’d happily eat them every day for the rest of his life if Evan would keep putting them in the toaster and lathering them in butter and sugary maple syrup, staying by his side for forever.

* * *

“Why am I not surprised the bandaid’s already off?”  
  
“Sorry, it was just so…so tempting? One end was sticking up just a little at the corner and when I started touching it, everything else just sort of followed and—“  
  
“Yeah. Well…,” he huffed a sigh before firmly taking hold of his hand, a nail trimmer in the other, “just stay still so I don’t hurt you.”  
  
Evan bit his lip, watching Connor like a hawk as he went nail by nail, trimming off their excess and every little unsightly hangnail. He was more than used to doing this, having always taken good care of his own nails, but when he was doing it to Evan, his heart beat just a little faster than usual…before he knew it, his cheeks were pink as he felt his boyfriend’s intense stare.

Evan was watching him so closely...why was it making him go so crazy? But he sort of liked it, too.  
  
“No! Nonono, too close!”  
  
“It’s not too close.”  
  
“It’s too close! Don't cut that much—“ he squeezed his eyes shut, trying to pull his hand away, but Connor held it there firmly as he trimmed his pinky nail.  
  
“See? All good.”  
  
He let out a sigh of relief, leaning back against the couch. _‘He’s gonna kill me someday,’_ he thought, causing himself to giggle, and Connor’s grip to tighten, keeping his hand steady.  
  
“There…”  
  
It had seemed like an eternity, and Evan’s hands had grown quite sweaty in the process, but his nails were finally done being cleaned up.  
  
“I know if I try painting them, you’ll just pick it all off.”  
  
“Ye-yeah. Yeah, you’re probably right about that.”  
  
Taking hold of both Evan’s newly groomed hands, he gave them a squeeze and leaned up, his eyes fluttering shut, pressing his lips against his.  
  
And then his cell started buzzing annoyingly in his back pocket. With a groan he let go and stood up, seeing it was his home phone number. “Literally the _worst_ fucking time, Jesus Christ!”  
  
Evan rose to his feet and Connor already knew what he was going to say so he accepted the call and stormed upstairs to Evan’s room, slamming the door shut, leaving the blonde to himself.  
  
_‘At least he answered this time…that’s progress, right?’_  
  
Evan went to the kitchen, cleaning up. There wasn’t much to do, just throw away their plastic products, and put the milk, maple syrup and butter back in the fridge. By the time he’d finished and washed his hands, Connor was back downstairs.  
  
The phone was still at his ear, but he spoke as though it wasn’t. “Even though we had _fucking plans_ for today…Evan…would you wanna go to a stupid picnic with my family?”  
  
“O-of course! That sounds…that sounds great! Like, really, really, great.”  
  
Meeting with Connor’s family was a little stressful. Not because they’re bad people or anything, but because they seemed to have such high expectations of him as their son’s first boyfriend. They talked about him like he was the most incredible young man in the universe—which Connor also did, but it wasn’t ever stressful in the same way for some reason—and asked him questions about his future like, _‘What will you be majoring in?’_ , _‘Are you planning on joining any student organizations?’,_ or _‘What are you going to do after college?’_  
  
He hated questions like that, only because he knew his answers were some of the most monotonous, average answers one could possibly imagine: not ones you’d expect from someone so supposedly wonderful.  
  
“What time? _…Fine._ Bye.”  
  
Yeah, it probably hadn’t been the best conversation, but it’d certainly been better than some previous phone calls with his family that Evan could recall overhearing. Hopefully this get-together wouldn't end up in a blow up.  
  
“They just wanna see you. Move-in’s in a week,” Evan moved closer, testing the waters, but it seemed Connor was already calmed down just from having ended the call, so he embraced him, holding him close and rubbing his back.  
  
The brunette returned the hug with a sigh and shake of his head. He had no idea what his parents had planned this time. Another interrogation of his boyfriend? Even worse: an interrogation about what he'd be doing at college? Those boring questions about majoring and extra-curricular activities, or making new friends...and heaven forbid his father bring up 'fraternity' or 'sports.'  
  
As he pulled away from the hug, he wiped his face with his hoodie's sleeve before falling down on the couch with a soft ‘plop.’ He crossed his ankles that were hanging over the arm and took a deep breath, “So…before we talk about _that_ potential shitstorm, there’s something else I wanna tell you.”  
  
_‘Finally!’_ He thought, sitting next to Connor head and beginning to idly toy with his pretty brown hair, excited for his boyfriend to open up, excited to be there for him like he was always there for him when he needed someone. To be not just needed, but wanted.  
  
“I keep having fucked up dreams, Evan.”


End file.
